Disneyland Day One continued

Where was I? :) Now that we had successfully met the characters, it was time to head to the park! I had a brief thought of taking Henry back to the hotel for a nap but that thought vanished as soon as I saw the excitement on Henry's face! We thought the best way to go in to the park would be to ride the Monorail in. We made the short walk from the Disneyland Hotel to the Monorail station in Downtown Disney. Once we pointed out the Monorail to Henry, he got so excited to ride it! We tried to sit in the front but they weren't seating in the front that day. So we sat in the second car. 

Me and Lizzie.

 Nana and Em. 

 James and Henry. 

 I think right here, James is telling Henry, we're going to Disneyland! :) 

 Once in the park, we had to decide what to do. I hadn't planned on doing anything big the first day. I felt like meeting the characters and seeing some shows was best for the fist day. But the park didn't seem too crowded so we decided to go ahead and do just a few rides. But which ones? What do we take Henry on first? We had been prepping Henry for Disneyland by showing him Youtube videos of rides and he seemed to really like Pirates of the Caribbean. I was a bit nervous taking him on it because the ride has two fairly big drops right at the beginning. But my mom, who has taken little ones to Disneyland many times, gave me some tips and reassured me that my little dare devil wold love it. So we headed to Pirates!

Henry's first ride! 

 First experience waiting in line. Luckily, this line moves pretty quick so he was ok. 

 Disneyland! 

 Inside Pirates. 

 Henry was just taking it all in :) 

 He was really enjoying the talking parrots :) 

 About to get on our boat. 

 Here we go! 

 I held Henry on my lap the whole time. He did great with the two big drops, didn't cry or anything! He seemed to really enjoy it :) 

Our second ride of the day, we opted for Winnie the Pooh :) Didn't get too many pics of this ride. It's pretty tame and Henry liked it too. 

 Waiting in line... what is that by Henry's foot? James thought for sure he knew what it was. I was not convinced. 

 The only good pic we got on this ride :) 

After this ride, Henry was looking really tired. He had gotten up at around 5:30 that day, had tons of excitement and missed his nap. So while walking to our next ride, Henry conked out in the stroller. Instead of walking all the way back to the hotel, I decided to split off from the group and go chill somewhere quiet and cool while the others went on some big rides. My mom and sisters were eager to check out the newly remodeled Star Tours and James wanted to check out Space Mountain, Ghost Galaxy. Henry and I went to go see Great Moments with Mr Lincoln. It was pretty quiet and nice and cool in there. He didn't sleep too long and when he got up, we decided to go check out California Adventure, the park next door, to see if we could catch Disney Jr. Live on stage. We got there just in time. We couldn't take any pictures inside :( but Henry really enjoyed seeing his favorite characters from Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins and Handy Manny. His favorite part was the bubbles and the gold doubloons that fell from the ceiling during the show :) After the show ended we headed for the new Little Mermaid ride. They were just getting ready to shut the ride down for maintenance so we hurried on before they shut it down, thus no pictures of that ride either! We headed for Aladdin afterwards as we had heard the show was amazing (it was!). We waited in line right next to Don Cheadle! Good times :) The show was great but no pics allowed in there either :( It was getting close to dinnertime and we really wanted to check out the new Cars Land so we got a bite to eat at Flo's V8 Cafe. Good eats! I will give it to Disney on Cars Land, it looks just like the movie! It was waaaaay too crowded to ride anything so we just let Henry run around and we took some pics :) 

The moon right after they turned on the neon. 

The Cadillac mountain range. 

Stanley

Mater 

Erin, Henry, me, my mom and Emily in front of the cafe. (Nicole, James did not read your Disney blog about the dang Mickey balloon and he bought it when I wasn't around to warn him! That thing was sooooooo annoying! But Henry loved it :) 

My little family :) 

Lightning McQueen

After Cars Land, we wandered over to Bugs Land since it is usually not as crowded over there and there are little rides for Henry. We went on a bunch of the little rides but Henry's favorite was this ladybug ride that spins. It spun super fast and I HATED it!!! Thankfully it was short :) We were right by the Tower of Terror which auntie Zee Zee hates, so she took Henry while the rest of us went on the ride.

Spooky ;) 

Me and my baby, I think we are on that caterpillar ride? 

It was nearing closing time and we were all super tired so we trucked on back to hotel to catch a few z's before we got up super early for our next Disneyland day :)

Mickey pumpkin at night.

End of day one. 

The view from our room at night. 

Goodnight Disneyland, we'll see you bright and early tomorrow :) 

Henry was asleep the second his head hit the pillow :)